Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Sometimes while cruising down the Yangtze one is reminded of the scenery on Chinese scroll paintings. More often one is faced with the reality of the modern world: development and population pressure have turned this great river, and the land and air around it, into a garbage dump.

In 2007, BBC News reported on a study which estimated that the Yangtze, which account for approximately 35% of China's fresh water supply, was the receptacle for fourteen billion tons of waste.

Unfortunately it's not just what one sees on the surface. In 2006 The China Daily was very forthright in declaring the that "the Yangtze river is cancerous with pollution and rapidly dying, threatening drinking drinking water supplies in 186 cities along its banks, including Shanghai...." The same article reported that 300 million people in China do not have access to drinkable water.